A Cowboy To Kiss

“I take it you like the coffee,” Jake asked Kenzie, looking all full of himself, as if I told you so would pop out of his mouth at any second.

She forced herself to put her mug down on the counter. “It’ll do.”

At this point, she had no choice but to lie through her teeth.

“It’s the fresh cream,” Jake said. “It really adds to the flavor.”

“We stopped off at Bridget’s Dairy Farm and bought a gallon of their milk from grass-fed cows,” Joel offered, his baby blues twinkling. Kenzie really liked Joel...just not at the moment.

“There’s so much cream in that there milk, it makes my coffee taste richer than one of your mom’s cream pies,” her dad added.

She felt as if everyone was ganging up on her, or at least tossing in their support of Jake Scott, the Troublemaker.

She wasn’t in the mood this morning. She’d already checked the tracking number for her shipment of frozen semen and it hadn’t even left Canada yet. It seemed to be stuck in customs for some reason. At this rate, she might miss the window of opportunity for her mares and have to wait until next month. That alone had put her in a sour mood, and now she had to deal with her family’s praise for Jake’s coffee, as if it was the end all of coffees.

And even if it was possibly the smoothest coffee she’d ever held on her tongue, did they have to fall all over him?

“It’ll probably give me a heart attack before I’m thirty.”

Kenzie said a short prayer asking for forgiveness to the coffee gods as she dumped the rest of her perfectly perfect coffee into the sink, then proceeded to make instant coffee with hot tap water. She knew everyone was watching her, thinking she was wacky, but she kept right on going. When she dumped in cold nonfat milk, she took a sip of the awful but familiar swill, made a yummy sound, and looked over at Jake. “I thought you were leaving this morning?”

He crooked an eyebrow, smirked and said, “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You said so yourself last night.”

He tilted his head, the grin never leaving his face and stared at her. “I don’t recall ever saying I’d be leaving this morning. Not when your parents’ anniversary is a little over a week away. I wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

“There’s plenty of time for you to pack up, drive home and drive back down again, without your stud horses.”

“Not really,” Callie said as she grabbed the last raspberry scone from the box. Her dad had taken the other one. Kenzie’s heart almost stopped. She wanted that scone in the worst way. Didn’t her sister know that? Just because she was five months pregnant didn’t mean she could go around taking other people’s scones.

“Jake’s agreed to help us go over our menu for the reception,” her mom said, a wide grin on her lovely face. “He thinks we can actually save some money, and provide a healthier meal if we incorporate a few organic items.”

“I already helped you with that menu, and we came up with some tasty side dishes. You said so yourself. It’s too late to start messing with the menu now. We’ve already ordered some of the food.”

“It’s never too late to do the best thing for your guests,” Jake mumbled while he poured another mug of coffee. This time he poured it into a travel mug she’d bought several years ago at the county fair: Keep Calm and Cowboy On.

She loved that travel mug.

“So,” he said as he poured. “Joel, your dad and I trailed your mares out to the east pasture this morning, just in case you change your mind about my stallions.”

He added cream to the mug, closed it up tight, smiled and held it out for Kenzie, the logo prominently on display.

She wanted to lay into him for moving her mares, but that dang Keep Calm and Cowboy On logo reminded her that anger was not how she should handle this situation. Obviously, not only was her dad on Jake’s side, but so was her brother-in-law and her sister Callie. She wondered if even her own mother had fallen into the Jake-pit-of-cowboy-charm?

All she had to do at the moment was breathe...in, out...in, out.

“You might want this for later,” he told her, the smirk gone, looking more sexy than a man had a right to. His dark hair had that tousled style she loved, and his once scruffy chin appeared to have been recently shaved. His green eyes sparkled, and his black T-shirt seemed extra tight across his muscled chest. If she didn’t dislike his haughty attitude so much, she could see herself falling in step with this “natural” cowboy.

Just not today.

Not when he’d moved her mares without her consent. She vowed to never oversleep again, at least not until she could get him to leave...which she intended to do...today if possible.

This was war!

“I might,” she answered, grabbing the dang travel mug from his outstretched hand, while she abandoned her own mug of bad-tasting tepid coffee on the counter. “Thanks.”

Then she reached over and filched the raspberry scone off her sister’s plate.

“You don’t even like raspberries,” she told Callie, as she hustled out of the back door with Jake trailing close behind.

* * *

AFTER A REALLY bad night’s sleep due to a number of reasons, one of them being a complete lack of any sort of comfort, Jake thought things couldn’t get much worse. But then what did he know about a woman who seemed to be on a mission to get him to leave as soon as possible?

He’d driven down to the Grant ranch to help out his dad’s best friend, sure, but he had also hoped for some time to reflect and regroup. So far all of those desires seemed to be as elusive as a royal flush in a high-stakes poker game.

He’d gotten the okay from Henry that morning, while Kenzie slept, to move the mares out of the barn. Henry had assured him that it would be all right. The two hired hands were off that morning, so Jake had simply led the mares over. Joel helped out with the move, but he had his own ranch to run, the Double S, where Kenzie’s parents’ anniversary wedding ceremony would be held.

Jake had thought he and Joel were doing a good thing when the mares started getting restless in their stalls. They even cleaned the stalls while Kenzie slept, but none of that seemed to matter to her. Not even the fact that he’d made sure his stallions were secure in the corral before he and Joel walked the mares out to the fenced pasture.

Apparently, Kenzie didn’t appreciate anything that they’d done.

“We have to move the mares back to the corral, and get your horses out of there. I would prefer you put them in your horse trailer and drive them back to Montana, but for now the barn is fine. That pasture is for my heifers. We’re scheduled to move twenty-two heifers tomorrow morning.”

“Then what’s the harm in your mares spending today out there?”

She gazed at him while holding on to her mug, looking mighty good under the midmorning sun. He hoped she would agree because just getting the mares out into those pastures took a bit of doing. Like their owner, none of them were particularly cooperative.

“Fine,” she finally said, “but they can’t spend the night. The terrain might be too rugged for them in the dark.”

“Then we’ll bring them in before dusk.”

“There’s no we about it. You brought them out there, so you can lead them back. I’ll be too busy with...other things to help you.”

He thought by her hesitation that she was simply trying to make it more difficult on him. However, he liked that she wasn’t pushing him off the ranch, either.

“Sounds like an invitation to stay another day.”

She stared at him, took a long swallow from the travel mug and said, “I’ve got work to do. If you’re going to be here anyway, maybe you can do something other than brew coffee and move my mares around.”

“Whatever you need.”

Her eyes went wide and he wondered what went on in that head of hers as she flashed a momentary smirk.

Then as soon as his gaze rested on her lips, the smile vanished. “You can help me clean out the guesthouse, load it all into my pickup and drive it over to my brother Carson’s house in town. He’s been too busy helping plan the upcoming Cowboy Days to get to it. That’s where your parents will be staying once they arrive. I’ve been using it for storage and, I’m afraid, so have my siblings. It might be in pretty bad shape.”

“If I help clean it out, would it be okay if I move in while I’m here?” As much as Jake liked being close to Kenzie at night, just knowing she made love like an alley cat didn’t much help lull him to sleep...nor did the tiny size of the porch bed.